Manslaughter Or Accident: Case Goes To Grand Jury

December 11, 1993|By KEN ARMSTRONG Daily Press

HAMPTON — When Melissa Ann Green started across the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in the early morning hours of Aug. 15, she passed five sets of flashing yellow lights and an overhead sign warning drivers to prepare to stop.

She also passed a series of signs that reduced the speed limit from 55 to 35 to 25, according to state transportation department employees. Two hundred feet past the last sign, Green plowed into the rear end of a truck slowing down for stalled traffic.

FOR THE RECORD - Published correction ran Saturday, December 18, 1993.A story in the Dec. 11 Local section about a court hearing in a fatal automobile accident case incorrectly spelled the name of accident victim Deborah J. Campbell.

Investigators didn't find any skid marks indicating Green had hit her brakes, a state trooper said. Debra J. Campbell, a passenger in the car, suffered a broken neck and died two days later.

After hearing testimony Friday about the traffic accident, Hampton General District Judge T.H. Wilson ruled there was enough evidence to send a charge of involuntary manslaughter against Green to the grand jury. If the grand jury indicts Green, the 22-year-old Hampton woman could stand trial in March. The charge carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison.

Mark Wendel, a state trooper, interviewed Green at a hospital less than five hours after the accident. Green told him she drank about 3 1/2 beers before the accident while going to bars in Norfolk with friends, Wendel said. After eating at a Denny's restaurant, Green and Campbell headed home to Hampton.

Green remembered going onto the bridge-tunnel, Wendel said, but she recalled little of what happened afterward. She told Wendel she may have fallen asleep. Wendel quoted her as saying, "I'm almost certain I did." State transportation department officials said warning signals on the bridge-tunnel started about 7,600 feet - nearly 1 1/2 miles - before the site where Green ended up hitting the truck.

Traffic on the bridge-tunnel had come to a stop because of another accident some 15 minutes earlier, about a half-mile up the highway in the westbound lanes. Around 3:30 a.m., Green rear-ended a tractor-trailer rig driven by William Bodkin, who was slowing.

Campbell, 22, was unconscious when police and paramedics arrived. Her eyes were half open and her tongue was hanging out, Wendel said. When Wendel described the accident on the witness stand Friday, Green began crying and shaking slightly.

Margaret Norkowski, a friend who had gone with Green and Campbell to the bars, said Green's driving didn't appear unusual. Green and Campbell dropped Norkowski off at another friend's just before heading home.

Green's lawyer, Kathy Gear Owens, argued there was no evidence that Green was speeding or that her judgment had been clouded by alcohol. The prosecutor, Colleen Killilea, argued that the signals on the bridge-tunnel offered plenty of warning to any driver who was paying attention or whose judgment wasn't impaired.

In order to win a conviction on the involuntary manslaughter charge, prosecutors must prove that Green acted in reckless disregard of others' safety.